Essay

Relevance of Borders in Contemporary World

For the last three decades, scholars have argued about the diminishing significance of international borders and the increasing impact of globalization on transforming the world and making it increasingly borderless. Yet the great irony is that these statements were being made when war was widespread, in which borders played a significant role. War in Afghanistan and Iraq were grabbing the world’s attention and in Asian countries, there were constant border skirmishes. Although at the same time, the European Union was in its nascent stage and was experimenting with open borders, agreements such as NAFTA, SCO, and ASEAN were being signed. However, in successive years, as a result of the Wars in West Asia, there was large-scale immigration of people from war-torn countries to European countries.

Barbed wires at a border

Migration led to the rise of rhetoric among the natives about the negative impacts of globalization. The nationalist tendency grew in these countries culminating in to rise of leaders like Donald Trump who banked on the insecurity among the people to climb the political ladder. The rising nationalism and conservatism amongst the public and the simultaneously increasing international trade present a confusing picture of the nature of globalization. Despite the phobia of outsiders the cultural integration of the world is speeding up. There is a unique phase of global integration underway that hasn’t been seen before Globalization plus Nationalism.

Scholars continue to assert the decreasing relevance of borders in the international arena. And they are not wrong. In some aspects, the borders have made to abandon their traditional task. The current notion of borders stems back to the Westphalian notion of State. At the time of Westphalian Peace, society was agrarian where the State was an option ¹, albeit in an administrative sense. The borders at this point were an abstract. The rule of the rulers was effective only in the capital and major cities. There existed no nationalism.

The only form of state present was in the form of feudalism. With the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the state was recognized as an international citizen able to maintain its own culture, politics, religion, and internal policies, shielded by the international system from outside intervention². The treaty gave rise to the notion of absolute sovereignty. All aspects of public life had substantial control of the state. As a consequence, this kind of state control increased the importance of borders. The demarcation of borders became important for administrative purposes, which at that time amounted to tax and revenue collection, albeit in limited areas.

However, after the transition from the agrarian age to the industrial stage, the state was no longer an option ³. The division of labour enhanced the importance of the state. The Industrial Revolution gave rise to nationalist sentiment, since now governments were mercantilist– a view that the world economy was limited and to prosper your country meant stealing the prosperity of other countries. This was a significant development as far as the nature of borders is concerned. The administrative importance of borders was enhanced especially when factories sprung up in remote corners of the country. The authority of the state was enhanced in controlling industrialization.

New rules began to be made regarding industries. Tariff and non-tariff barriers were used to manage the flow of goods. Factories in border areas just a few miles apart were playing by different rules of production. Also with the promulgation of the Westphalian system, subjects of a state now became its citizens. In the conventional wisdom borders now serve various economic and social functions. They became socio-territorial constructs⁴.

Context of Colonial Borders

For much of history, since the combo of the Peace of Westphalia and the Industrial Revolution altered the understanding of borders, European colonization dominated the globe. As decolonization started, new borders were being drawn in the colonized world. Unlike Europe, where states were arranged according to ethnicity with states having substantive, if not absolute, homogeneity vis-a-vis culture, language, religion etc., the colonized world was being divided not on ethnic lines but according to politics between contemporary great powers. For example, the Sykes-Picot agreement divided Arab countries by borders based on the political interests of France and Britain; and the Durand line was established between British India and Afghanistan as a result of English and Russian politics.

Many of the colonial borders cut through ethnic groups dividing them into two separate entities. This kind of division has made non-western countries unsuitable for Westphalian Sovereignty which needed ethnic and religious homogeneity to establish itself. This division has given the formerly colonized world an extreme disadvantage of constant conflict ⁵. With cultural similarities of certain groups on both sides of the border, instead of prevailing, peace has been eroded in West Asia.

In the Spring of 2013, Ayatollah Syed Ali Khamenei delivered a speech to Muslim clerics. He called the widespread Arab Spring an ‘Islamic Awakening’ and that this awakening would ‘unify the Muslim Ummah and restore it to world centrality’. This was a straight defiance of the world order based upon Westphalian Sovereignty. A world where religious and social interference of one state into matters of other states is a serious threat to the world order originally established on state sovereignty on all affairs including religious affairs of people living within its borders. Iran has been exporting its Revolution to other Islamic countries to establish a very different kind of borderless world.

But how do these colonial borders impact the relevance of borders in the contemporary world? Some of the former colonized world is a conflict-prone region. Territorial contiguity present in this region is a major determinant of whether or not states will engage in conflicts or not ⁶. Much of its susceptibility to conflicts is a result of irrational borders drawn by colonizers. Moreover, the lucrative oil fields in the Middle East region have attracted the Western powers. Mostly a result of the West’s interventionism in the non-Western region, terrorism has been rooted there. This terrorism manifested in suicide bombings, hijacking etc. and loss of innocent lives has made the public in the West increasingly insecure. As a consequence, rising nationalism has subsumed the once-prevalent notion of eroding borders. Instead public in the West has become once again wary of ‘outsiders’.

When scholars and commentators speak of a borderless world, they mostly emphasize one aspect of the original purpose of borders: controlling the flow of money and goods across boundaries. In this aspect, globalization has been perfect. The economic organizations are increasingly at odds with the bordered world. The two realms that have benefitted the most from globalization are information technology and monetary flow. Such flow has greatly improved lives all over the world. But as far as another function of the border is concerned ‐that of acting as a social boundary- they have increased their importance. The original social purpose of borders- separating different cultures ethnicities and religions is being again implemented due to the public perception that the acts of terrorism are somehow related to Islamic culture.

Acts of terrorism have negatively impacted the inflow of migrants so much so that the countries built by migrants are closing their doors. Borders of regions like Europe have been rejuvenated in the past decade. European countries have shut their borders to stop refugees and give monetary benefits to Libya and Turkey to stop them at the border. However such barriers have not stopped cultural exchanges. This becomes a very unique and complicated situation where social integration is on a decline but cultural assimilation is on the rise. Consumer capitalism has created a huge consumer base for cultural exchanges such as movies, music etc. but has impeded social assimilation due to the strengthening of prejudices which Edward Said has called Orientalism.

However, not much of this would have been possible had there not been the presence of the state in the psychology of the public. The state keeps itself alive in the minds of its citizens through specific institutions such as educational institutions, judiciary etc. The people are constantly reminded of the presence of the state. The same goes for borders. The notion of borders acting as a social boundary is kept alive in the minds of the public through a few institutions.

Watch tower at a Border fence

However, these institutions are not specifically meant for this particular purpose. Keeping the notion of border alive is a mere add-on. The state continuously depicts the border in maps which still exercises a major influence on the territorial imagination of whose security is at stake⁷. The constant valourization of the armed forces present at the border also has the same purpose. Since the original purpose of the border has been kept alive though unpracticed, the original public expectation from the border and the state has been rejuvenated.

Conclusion

Few aspects of borders have faded but some of them have been reborn. The flow of investments has increased but the flow of people is on a decline. The notion of citizenship being a social contract is again gaining momentum. The insecure public in the West is expecting its government to provide them security even if it means giving up certain freedoms. While in the Islamic world, the very notion of sovereignty is being challenged. This also has resulted in a conflict of interests. On one hand, there are the Iranians and other groups with similar ideologies such as the Muslim Brotherhood that are vouching for a united Islamic world and on the other hand the Saudis whose interests would be jeopardized in a united Islamic world. All this while borders have become more relevant socially and less relevant economically.